The New York Times

Thursday Julyb 17, 1997

"U.S., Bending a Bit, Will Offer Wider Role for 3d World at U.N.

By BARBARA CROSSETTE

UNITED NATIONS, July 16 - After months of inaction over how to make the Security Council more reflective of today's world, the Clinton Administration is to recommend that three permanent seats be given to developing nations, a senior American official said today.

The decision to move beyond a five-year-old policy of supporting permanent membership for only Japan and Germany came in a new Administration review that also gave the go-ahead to Bill Richardson, the United States representative, to begin pressing for quicker action on restructuring the Council.

The five current permanent members are the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia. Ten other Council seats are held for two years by countries selected from regional groups. The Council is the only body, in the organization with the power to order military force and make other binding decisions.

"The fact that they are prepared to accept developing countries as permanent members is a progressive move," said Prakash ShaK, India's representative, who was at a meeting today during which Mr. Richardson outlined his ideas. Mr. Richardson is to announce the policy on Thursday, an aide said.

The briefing was organized by Razali Ismail, Malaysia's representative and the president of the General Assembly. Mr. Razali has been urging the Assembly to move faster in expanding the Security Council, which has not changed in size since the 1960's, when most developing countries were still emerging from colonialism. But without an active American role, the debate stalled.

"The message we are sending is that we want to be players on Security Council reform and that we are ready to admit three developing countries to shake up this languishing process," Mr. Richardson said in an interview today. Under the American plan, developing countries would be left to decide how to choose who would fill the new

permanent seats, and whether these seats would also be rotated. Fierce rivalries have already emerged in several regions that could make consensus difficult.

The United States still has some disagreements with developing nations over the final size of the Council and the question of whether veto power would be limited in any way. Washington wants a Council confined to no more than 20 or 21 members, doubling the permanent members to 10 but keeping non-permanent seats at 10, or maybe adding one. The United States and some other nations say a large Council would be unwieldy and ineffective. Mr. Razali has proposed increasing the Council to 24 members by adding five permanent and four non-permanent seats.

Mr. Shah said today that the American position on the number of seats needed more discussion.

"To get general agreement," he said, "the majority of the members need to have something that benefits them. The only way you can do that is to have some increase in non-permanent seats also."

The United States insists that its veto not be weakened, but American and other diplomats said Washington is prepared to turn over to a committee the decision on how to deal with vetoes for new members. Mr. Razali's plan would deny the veto -to all new members.

Diplomats said Mr. Richardson, a former Congressman from New Mexico and an international troubleshooter, had impressed others with his interest in building bridges to poorer nations, and they attributed the policy change to his influence.